Computer Gamer


Frankie Goes To Hollywood

Publisher: Ocean
Machine: Commodore 64

 
Published in Computer Gamer #6

Frankie Goes To Hollywood

Relax because it's here at last, the computer game of the mega-hype group Frankie Goes To Hollywood.

The Frankie package is a boxed set of two tapes, one with a live version of Relax by the group themselves and the other containing the game, which takes you from Mundanesville to the heart of the Pleasure Dome itself. Appearing like an action adventure, the program contains a range of small action screens and puzzles which must be successfully completed to build up your personality so that you can pass through the door to the centre of the Pleasure Dome itself.

The opening screen places you in a street in Mundanesville as an amorphous humanoid shape seeking to develop the four essential elements of personality: Pleasure, War, Love and Faith. These elements are represented on the right of the screen display by icons above which columns grow as you gain experience during the game. Occasionally the screen displays a readout of the sum total of the columns as percentage to let you know how you're developing.

Frankie Goes To Hollywood

To gain experience you must search the houses of Mundanesville for items which may be of use in the action screens or in the maze called the Corridors of Power contained within the Pleasure Dome. In superb graphic action, you can lead your character from room to room investigating every item of furniture simply by making him reach out and touch it. If there is anything worth taking it is displayed in a small inset box superimposed on the screen. Usually there are three or four items to choose from and you must decide which will be useful, trial and error over many sessions of play will tell you what you need. As usual, you can only carry a limited amount.

In some of the rooms there are television sets with videos attached. During your search, you find video cassettes which may be played on these TVs and your humanoid can enter the screen of the TV to find himself in the centre of an arcade game or a puzzle screen. There are about ten different screens to be completed and success is rewarded with personality points, failure means a reduction of points however.

In most of the screens, objects found in the houses may enhance your chances but care must be taken to choose the correct item because it can only be used once and a wrong choice loses the object forever.

Frankie Goes To Hollywood

Another two ways exist to move into the action screens: through pictures on the walls of the houses or by entering doors within the Pleasure Dome maze. The Pleasure Dome is reached by unlocking a door in one of the dozen or so houses in Mundanesville and the maze can be mapped by noting the colours of various manholes which are found but be warned, the manholes will swallow up your character and return him to Mundanesville with a subsequent loss of personality points. Passing through the doors in the corridors leads into the action screens.

The pictures must be touched to activate them. They grow into larger images which form entrances in the same way as the video cassettes and, since part of the fun is working out how to enter the screens, wild horses won't drag the secret out of me (written requests on the back of the £5 notes might). Touching a picture increases a personality element and one little hint to the more patient cheats out there is to touch the picture, leave the room, re-enter and touch the picture again.

After fifty or so visits to each picture you will have increased three or four personality elements to maximum. This is obviously only a hint to those who are desperate enough to turn a superb game into a total bore and those trying to follow my advice probably deserve to be exiled to Mundanesville forever.

Frankie Goes To Hollywood

I will not reveal too much about the action screens except to say that they are varied in scope ranging from preventing the bombing of Merseyside, through a battle of words between the Superpowers to taking the role of a devil hunting for halos under a barrage of Cupid's arrows! Each mini-game is an entertainment in itself and I've seen worse programs sold at exorbitant prices as games in their own right.

In one of the houses a murder has been committed (all human life is covered in this game) and you must solve the crime if you are to succeed. After discovering the body you will find clues in most of the rooms of the other houses (could they be Sherlock Holmes?) and your deductive powers must be brought to focus on the solution to the crime before re-entering the murder room to reveal the villain of the piece.

Ocean have really gone to town on this package, the graphics are excellent and the music is well produced except for the frog-in-the-throat sound of Relax played over the loading screen. The game itself has kept me coming back for more since it arrived on my desk but, as in life, I still have not reached the full potential of my personality development which would enable me to enter the final room of the maze. Ocean, I hate your devious minds but I love your new game.